


The Mischief Twins & The Sword of Surtur

by kate_mckinnon



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Loki has a wife and Kids, Protective Siblings, all the faves - Freeform, belrik - Freeform, fosterson, hella belrik, im gonna put belrik content in this, loki's son has an unofficial wife, lokingrid - Freeform, siblings annoying the shit out of each other, thor and jane have kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-10 20:44:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15957182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_mckinnon/pseuds/kate_mckinnon
Summary: ( A LOKIFAM ADVENTURE )Life is almost idyllic in the new Asgard, though fourteen-year-old twins Bjorn and Ingimarr, sons of Loki, can't help but become jealous of their friends and family and want a piece of glory all for themselves━ and they get themselves caught up in something they couldn't have foreseen, embarking on an adventure they might yet wish they didn't have.





	1. ( i ; ingimarr )

Really, it was only because of Alrik's excessive bragging that I had the idea in the first place. I don't know about you, but hearing your annoying older brother bragging really sets some people off. Like me.  _Duh!_  So, before this story actually starts, I'd like to make it absolutely clear that it was all, in its entirety, completely Alrik Harold Lokison's _greasy_ fault.   
Now, our story begins in a realm━ the realm eternal, specifically━ called Asgard. Ever since I was young, people have yelled at me. My cousin Natalie and sister Annalise were practically the only exceptions. My mother never really yelled at me either, but I attributed that to her and my father raising eleven children at the same time as me and simply being too busy to yell. There was Olga, Alrik, Alice, Hecate, Elina, Cicero, Annalise, Bjorn, Edvald, me, of course, and little baby Felix. Twelve of us, and out of that number, nine had been yelling at me eternally since I was born. Life was simple. I was born, I did things, I got myself yelled at for it as the price. Occasionally, it was really fun. But every once in a while, I wanted to be yelled at for a different reason. What was the word again? Ah, yes. "Cheered." I wanted to be cheered on. See, I was fourteen at the time of this particular bout of longing, and when I was listening to my idiot older brother speak, it only got worse with every second that I had to tune in.   
"There must've been five of them surrounding us! All these wolves, their teeth bared, the size of daggers, all of them!" Alrik was telling the story of his "meeting" with the Jotun wolves again. "Meeting," as in slaying them with his friends Uma, daughter of Brunnhilde, a Valkyrie warrior, and Ivar, son of Fandral.  
"You're lying," Uma spoke, and the whole crowd around them seemed to pause in their excited chatter as if they were holding their breath, anticipating what was about to occur, what was going to be said. I lifted my head slightly, listening in. Uma usually had nothing to add. I thought maybe, this time, she'd be the one to make Alrik come clean. All these claims seemed like bogus anyways.  
"I counted at least a dozen, with teeth like swords." She continued as the crowd gasped with glee and had a jovial laugh amongst themselves. I lowered my head again, looking frustratedly at the book in my lap as I did. Okay, so perhaps I was jealous. Jealous of the attention . . . Maybe I wanted some too. Would that really have been so bad?  
"Is it true that you plan to retrieve the sword of Surtur on your next trip to Jotunheim?" Now, that certainly piqued my interest. At first, I couldn't recognize the voice of who had asked, before the crowd parted around two females, and my eyes landed on none other than Venus Strange, arm-in-arm with her sister Reina Alexander. Their eyes seemed to gleam in the same way, as if they were in tune with one another. It was creepy. A lot of people thought they were quite hot, being so mysterious, but I thought it was rather creepy━ at least, Reina was. Venus, less so. Once you learned Venus at least had her head on straight, unlike Reina, you would see them in an entirely different light.   
"It is!" Alrik confirmed. "We start our journey at sundown tonight. It is a perilous journey, but should we find our prize, it will be well worth it." It was then, and exactly then, that he gave me the idea. The sword of Surtur━ I didn't know much about it at the time, truth be told, but I was willing to learn. And so, I closed my book with a snap, slipped it into my leather pouch on my waist, and made my way to the castle, tuning out Alrik's last words on the subject. If anyone were knowledgeable about lost artifacts in our history, it would have been Natalie Foster. Yes, the aforementioned cousin wasn't always on Asgard, nor was she fully Asgardian, but she had quite a mind for learning. No matter where she was, she could always find the history of the place, simply because she wanted to. It was like she couldn't help sucking up all the information around her━ like a short, brunette sponge. So, of course, when I mentioned the sword of Surtur to Spongey McGee, it came as no surprise to me when she immediately went and found a book in the massive library containing the story I was looking for.  
"Why are you interested in the Elderstahl?" She asked idly as she pried the book from the tight space it was stuck in, blowing the dust off of it and directly into my face. I coughed profusely as she put the book down on the nearest table. I could see Alice two tables away from us, squinting at the word "Elderstahl," but all I did was flip her off behind Natalie's back as my older sister simply raised a thin eyebrow and returned the gesture.  
"Oh, it's just something I heard Alrik talking about. What is it?" I asked curiously as she smiled.  
"Well, from what I know, it's the sword Surtur was to use to wipe out the frost giants before it was lost on Jotunheim. The story is very famous here. Haven't you heard of it?" She asked, rather confused, as I looked at her with a deadpan expression.  
"Never before today." Truthfully, I'd heard of it before, I just had no desire to figure out what it was. "What's so interesting about some lost sword that everyone's talking about it?" I continued to ask as she opened the book.   
"Well, it's a sort of . . . Coming-of-age quest that young warriors go on, to find the sword."  
"But it's still lost?" I raised a brow, but she simply grinned.  
"The point of the quest isn't to find the sword of Surtur, but in looking for it. Dad told me all about it. He and Loki wanted to go looking for it as children, but couldn't because the treaty with Jotunheim was so unstable and the Allfather forbade them from going." She explained.  
"I've literally heard none of this before," I replied and she seemed to sigh hopelessly through her nostrils, looking at me with her wide brown eyes.  
"I hope the book helps you with your questions!" She told me cheerily, walking off to leave me with the book. I read it from cover to cover. It took only a couple hours. The gist of it, from what I gleaned while skimming the pages (okay, so maybe I didn't read it completely, so what?) was that a long, long time ago, Surtur was going to destroy Jotunheim, to kill the entire race with his magical sword. The Elderstahl was crafted by dwarfs and had great power and was capable of shooting fire from the blade with enough force to shatter a mountain. Once I figured out that Odin was the one who defeated Surtur, I kind of figured that the features on this sword were, perhaps,  _exaggerated_. Just a little.   
However, I was sold on the idea of trying to find it. Some sword Odin lost that people have unsuccessfully tried to find, like a million times before me? I was practically convinced that this was the mission for me. I just didn't want to do it alone. I snapped the book closed and put it in my pouch along with the other one before standing up and exiting the library, set on finding Bjorn to convince him to be my mission partner.   
There was only one problem. I hadn't heard the end of Alrik's dorky little speech about our chosen quest. The few crucial words I missed?   
". . . If we survive," of course.


	2. ( ii ; bjorn )

It was a crazy idea. Insane. It made no sense.

"You'll do it?" Ingimarr asked.

"Of course," I replied. Why wouldn't I agree to this? Well, there were many reasons. One being this could surely shatter the treaty set by Odin and Laufey if two princes of Asgard were to come knocking on Jotunheim's door, looking for a sword that could destroy all of its inhabitants when the ecosystem and everything else had already been weakened for centuries because of the separation from their Casket of Ancient Winters. Two being that because of the first reason, we were most certainly forbidden from visiting Jotunheim by our parents and the King, and that if we disobeyed them, we were sure to get more than a stern talking to. Even more than a spanking, perhaps. Three, because Ingimarr's idea for how we were going to get there was perhaps even more stupid and dangerous than the mission itself.

"So, before sundown, we'll stow away on Uma's ship and make ourselves comfortable. Of course, we shall probably have to bring our own food to avoid getting caught during the journey to Jotunheim and being brought back . . ." He trailed off, rubbing at his chin as I raised a brow.

"I am not going to carry an entire pheasant down to that ship and then leave it in those dusty, dusty quarters." I spoke matter-of-factly, my nose wrinkling at the thought of it just for good measure.

"Who said anything about pheasants?" He grinned.

"I did," I rolled my eyes. "I'm not going foraging for scraps on this journey, I hope you know that. I'm not some peasant's pig."

"Well, we couldn't possibly sneak live pheasants aboard Uma's ship, let alone cook them without them noticing . . ." Ingimarr hummed, his brow furrowing as he tried to sort out this dilemma in his head.

"Or perhaps," I began slowly, tone raising in irritation with my next words, "we could ask permission first before deciding to stow away on a dirty, rat-filled ship, where we could accidentally die in any number of ways, and we could get there faster without their help." I chided. His brow only seemed to furrow even more, to which I sighed hopelessly, my eyes rolling up to the ceiling. Before I could explain to the moron exactly what I meant his eyes seemed to widen.

"But he couldn't possibly grant us permission," he replied, "it would be going against the King's orders."

"And we're the princes, numbskull." I shot back as his mouth dropped, nodding in understanding as his jaw slowly came back up once again. Now, all I had to do was convince him to round up some pheasants . . .

* * *

Rounding up pheasants and stuffing them into a large sack took more time than we had anticipated, and by the time Ingimarr and I were making our way to the Bifrost, Ingimarr carrying the sack of irritated live birds, it was already late afternoon. The sky was turning from baby blue to orange, the sun beginning to set beyond the mountains casting great shadows onto the land. We had to hurry, obviously, or there was no way in Helheim we were going to make it before sundown and possibly be found out by Uncle Thor and punished by our parents for nearly enacting out an insanely idiotic plan. But of course, when we finally got to Heimdall, his first word to us was "no."

"What do you mean, 'no,'? I haven't even said anything yet!" I scowled as Ingimarr, behind me, struggled to keep the pheasants under control, yelping as one nicked him with his beak through the burlap sack. The gatekeeper barely even gave us a look, though when I moved to the front of him, I could see amusement clear in his golden eyes, his lips pulled into a slight smirk. It looked smug to me. I didn't like it.

"You are forbidden to go to Jotunheim until you are of age, as declared by our King, and even then, you are not to go to find the sword of Surtur; you may only visit for diplomatic means." He explained calmly, though there was something in his eyes that convinced me he knew more than he was letting on; as usual. Heimdall had always been fairly cryptic, even compared to Odin, and given that he could see across the vast universe, no one was surprised with his unusual amount of knowledge compared to everyone else in the realm. I remembered Aunt Danielle, Aunt Jane's sister, had called his eyes creepy after finding out they could see everything. I only found his all-seeing abilities irritating, however.

"He may be King, but we are princes, _are we not_? Surely you must be bound to obey us, the same as you are bound to obey him." I crossed my arms over my chest, my forest green eyes narrowing as I tried to anticipate the loophole of his statement.

"Not exactly the same, no. You cannot overrule our King. However . . . I am still bound to do what you tell me." He explained, and as I heard and saw one of the pheasants escape the bag, making angry squawks as it lunged at Ingimarr's ankles. They must have been in mating season, these males were quite aggressive. That was made apparent as Ingimarr yelped again, which I only ignored, of course. My chin lifted as I stared Heimdall down. There was only one way I could think of that would work, only one way to get to Jotunheim . . . The way in which I already knew the endgame. The way in which I was inevitably going to be shoved into a storage closet on the dirtiest ship in the cosmos. So be it, I thought.

"Then you will tell no one where we are going." Heimdall nodded at my command, understanding. There was a twinkle in his eye, though, one that gave me a suspicion that this journey was not about to be entirely easy, or even at all straightforward.

"All right, Prince Bjorn. Is that all?" He asked, watching me now, head slightly tilted. I thought for a brief moment.

"No, I think that is all," I responded. My thoughts would be confirmed soon enough, anyway. Though I wanted to ask, I was fairly certain I already knew what the answer to my question would be. Either way, I would find out at sundown. Either way, I was about to be crammed in a storage closet with my idiot twin brother and some angry pheasants. Either way, I would surely regret this.

But isn't that always how the best stories begin?

_Exactly_.


	3. ( iii ; ingimarr )

After a couple hours of being stuck in a crowded little spaceship with a live, angry pheasant stuck under each of my arms, nipping at my clothed armpits and screeching silently, as Bjorn had placed a spell on them to silence every sound they made, I was beginning to get tired. I had briefly wondered aloud, in whispers, why he couldn't make them stay still with a full-body binding spell, but he shushed me and immediately went to sleep on the floor, which I was almost entirely certain he was faking, simply to escape answering my question. Soon enough, murmurs had started to reach my pointed ears from the cockpit, and I wanted to know what they were saying.

So far, there hadn't been much talking, really, just the sound of Ivar and Alrik playing hacky-sack with an apple as Uma let the ship rest on autopilot. The fact that they had visited Jotunheim so many times it had been programmed into their system was astounding to me . . . Especially considering Alrik, of all people, was most definitely not allowed to visit, before of the fragile peace treaty. As I heard Uma laugh in the middle of a sentence, I finally decided to use my limited magical abilities to keep the pheasants from squirming, before I fervently pressed my ear to the door of the storage closet. I had evidently tuned in just in time, because the topic was of much interest to me. But it wasn't about the sword of Surtur, no.

"So, when are you going to tell the princess of Vanaheim about her ' _ long  _ brown tresses' and her 'cerulean, kaleidoscopic  _ pools _ '?" Uma jested, and I heard my elder brother let out a rather loud scoff. Vanaheim had been at war since I was a small child with some outside realm, or perhaps even with itself, I had never gotten the full story, and the royal children had been cast out to different realms. There was Ragna, daughter of Cronan, who had been sent to Midgard with no memory of her past or how she had gotten there, and she had taken up the name of Rebecca Marilyn Barnes━ she went by Becky, even now that she had come back to her home realm, even now that she was surrounded by everyone who only knew her as Ragna, the warrior, the brave-hearted, the unstoppable.

Ragna was the princess in question, of course. I'd met her once before, during a ball welcoming her back to her home as the war had ended, and though she had said hello to me briefly, she seemed annoyingly interested in Alrik. The worst thing was that  _ he  _ noticed it, too. She was so cool, and though she kept using magic to alter her appearance, she was always consistently gorgeous, and I  _ may or may not _  have been very silently and very secretly campaigning for her to be my Queen; so while hearing her being brought up made my heart skip, it also made my heart burn, knowing my stupid, magicless oafish brute of a brother had his eyes on her, too. So what if they were the same age, and I two years younger? According to my mother, love would always prevail, and that, I would make sure of. Even if it meant tackling Alrik and giving him sixteen noogies for every year he'd been alive and making him promise he'd never go near her again, before trotting on horseback into the sunset with her arms wrapped around my middle.

"I didn't say brown; I said 'chestnut.'" Alrik corrected her. I could imagine him holding up a finger as he pointed out the difference, a habit he'd had since he'd first seen our father arguing to mother that a dagger was perfectly fine for a baby to hold onto, if it was sheathed. That was the story mother had told of it, which she either brought up every time Alrik raised his finger, or she simply stared at him with the soft look of a mother bird seeing her baby flap his wings.

" _ Did  _ you? Let's see━"

"Wait!" He cried out suddenly in protest after Ivar's rhetorical question. I pressed my ear further into the door, as if it would help me hear any better, before I slowly cracked it open, looking out to see what was going on, to witness Ivar holding a leatherbound book out of Alrik's reach━ his diary.

"'O, fair Princess,'" Ivar read aloud, his neck craned and his arm strained as he used the other one to push Alrik away with a huff, "'I saw your face in my dreams tonight. Your beauty haunts my mind like a banshee.'" He furrowed his brow at the line. "A  _ banshee _ ? How flattering." He smirked as Alrik lunged for the book again.

"I'm not done yet!" Ivar chided, holding the diary further out of reach. "'Your chestnut tresses cascaded━' So, you  _ did  _ say chestnut.  _ I _  thought her hair was more like autumn auburn if anything, but━" Alrik finally snatched his book back, tucking it into his coat pocket as the tips of his pointed ears turned blood red.

" _ Oh _ , shut up." He hissed as Ivar and Uma chuckled.

"Bah," I whispered. "I wouldn't have compared her to a banshee." Plus one point for me.

"Truly, Lokison, you have to speak up sometime. Before she ends up engaged to someone else. You may as well try. And if she refuses you, you can claim it was a joke!" Uma pointed out, as Alrik let out a rather indignant squawk at her suggested plan.

"I wouldn't tell her that!" He frowned. "That is too cruel, even for me." I rolled my eyes to myself. My brother, with his villainizing complex. Always making himself out to be big and bad, when really, he was just a dork with soft insides, as everyone with two eyes and a functioning brain could clearly observe if they knew him well enough. I figured he did it as a way to attract women━ as a way to make up for his face driving them away, of course.

"You seem to be avoiding what I'm saying, Rik." Uma raised a brow, crossing her arms over her chest. "Tell her how you feel. No more just writing it down." There was a long pause, before━

"I have to find my━ my  _ thing _ . For the units," He muttered, turning on his heel and heading to the storage closet, as I quickly, quietly, closed the door again, heart jumping. We were going to be found out. He was going to take us back to Asgard, wasn't he? Or worse, he'd use us as  _ white wolf bait _ !

"It's right here, dimwit," Uma called over, and his footsteps retreated as I breathed a small sigh of relief.

"You're lucky; we're just about here, so you won't have to promise me anything for a while." She slapped the electronic wristband into his hand harshly enough that I could hear it, and he simply sighed as my heart jumped. Were we already to Jotunheim, truly? It seemed impossible, like a trip that was far too short to possibly be true. The ship steadily landed on the solid ground with a few bumps and Ivar yawned, the three of them getting up from their seats finally, taking up their weapons that barely scraped against the metal floor, and they exited the ship. I could hardly believe it. Were we really here?

I slowly opened the storage closet door, stepping out into the narrow hall leading from the cockpit to the exit ramp, and I released the pheasants from their body-binding spell. Shields had come down on the windows of the ship, probably to keep them from freezing over from the subzero temperatures. I sneaked over to the controls by the exit ramp, pressing the button to let it down. Slowly, light poured into the dark space, but━ something was wrong.

On the ground below the ship, there was no snow. No ice. Just dirt with patchy, yellow grass strewn about, looking like it had been trampled about a thousand times. Even more noticeably, this planet was as humid as Odin's  _ armpits _ , may he rest in Valhalla. I slowly stepped down the ramp, pheasants following me, and my jaw dropped at what I saw before me. It was a pub. The pheasants escaped my vision, but that was the least of my worries. As I stepped out from between the ships on either side of me, away from Uma's, to my rear, my jaw still did not seem to lift. My thoughts were racing a million miles a minute.

_ My gods,  _ I realized dimly.  _ They'd been lying the whole time.  _


	4. ( iv ; bjorn )

"Come out of the closet, Bjorn!" I heard a distant yell and began to slowly sit up, awoken from my ephemeral slumber. At least, it  _ felt  _ brief. Isn't that always how it seems to go, anyway? The ship was obviously not moving anymore, I could feel that much, though my groggy head seemed to still be spinning as if the craft had been hit in the tail and begun to spiral.

"What?" I asked, eyes narrowed, though it came out more as a " _ wart _ " than anything else. I heard my brother's quick footsteps pounding closer before the storage closet door flew open. I hissed in momentary pain as the light from over Ingimarr's shoulders stung my eyes before he grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet, with much reluctance from my end. 

"Oh, quiet down, you drama queen." He chided as he pulled me out of the closet and into the hall, watching me stumble as I struggled to keep up with his movements.

"Stop manhandling me, you brute," I snapped, slapping his hands away from me. "What's going on?" I asked as he turned on his heel, walking to the exit ramp. I unenthusiastically followed, raising a brow at his stiff and angered movements as he guided me outside. It was hot as a sauna outside of the ship, but before I became aware enough to place context clues together, he stopped abruptly, allowing me to run directly into his back, and he extended his arm, gesturing to the building in front of us.

" _ This _ ," he began, "is not Jotunheim." He pointed out the obvious, before turning around to face me now, arms crossed over his chest. Is this truly what he woke me up for?

"I can see that," I replied dryly, crossing my own arms as he sniffed the air angrily, visibly scowling now, clearly annoyed by my lack of reaction.

"And that means they were  _ lying _ ," he prodded, obviously trying to elicit more shock from me than he was receiving, but the shock would not come.

" _ Really _ ?" I feigned surprise, my irritation growing. "The eldest son of Loki,  _ lying _ ? Color me blue, Ingimarr." I punched him in the chest weakly, heading back towards the ramp.

"I already knew!" I shouted irritably over my shoulder. I could practically feel Ingimarr's livid glare as he threw a patch of dirt at my back, assumably, though it flew directly over my shoulder as he stomped after me, beginning to shout.

"What do you  _ mean _ , you  _ knew _ ?" He practically screeched, his voice cracking horribly as his voice raised, enough to make my own throat hurt in empathy. I turned on my heel, holding a hand out to stop him as he pursued me up the ramp.

"Be quiet! Are you seriously that dull, brother? If we are not allowed to go to Jotunheim, why would our brute warrior brother be allowed to? I  _ knew  _ Heimdall was withholding information from me. If they were  _ truly  _ going to Jotunheim, someone would have stopped them, because Heimdall would have heard them boasting." I snapped, watching as the information slowly broke through Ingimarr's thick skull, a look of understanding briefly crossing over his face before it was immediately replaced with another look of confusion, earning an eye roll from me. 

"Then why did you agree to go with me?" He asked, voice quieter now, green eyes still narrowed as I shrugged, dropping my arm and turning back around.

"I was curious." In truth, I had been at least a little curious to see where they were really going when my brother and his small squadron of idiots claimed they were going out on missions to defeat evil and battle white wolves. 

"Wait!" Ingimarr quickly grabbed my forearm, tugging me back as I started up the ramp again. "Then, perhaps we should see  _ inside _ ." As I realized what, exactly, he was referring to, my eyes trailing back to the pub door, I let out a small hum. There was no way they were going to allow us to stay in there unless we went in unnoticed. It was stupid to even go inside in the first place, I realized, to even consider doing something so outlandish at fourteen when the barmaid would most likely be an expert at telling ages. Then again, I remembered, it was stupid to go along with this plan in the first place. My mind was crying for me, telling me this idiotic plan was  _ above  _ me, above my intelligence and my powerful mind.  _ But why not be stupid again, while we're at it? _ Perhaps this could be a night to remember.

And then, about three minutes later, we had snuck in, not yet called out. I assumed it was due to our heights that no one gave us a second, half-hearted, drunken glance, to which I quietly thanked my parents for being of such outrageous heights. My mother, being one part elf, was of course extremely tall, around six feet and three inches, and my father, being a rather small frost giant, was only one inch below her. Most of my siblings were at least well over five feet and eight inches, and Ingimarr and I were no exception, standing lanky at six feet, though my long coat made my rather skinny figure look more impressive than willowy. I was told that I took after my parents in that arena, though Alrik, the freak, had somehow ended up more like our uncle than we did, and we weren't even related to him by blood. Perhaps I should have taken up warrior training as well. Might have done me some good . . .

_ Ah, _ there he was. Alrik, Uma, and Ivar, sitting at a wooden, circular table near the farthest corner from the door. I tapped Ingimarr's bicep with the back of my index finger before subtly gesturing to the three laughing jovially at their table. Before I could stop him, Ingimarr went to sit at a table near to theirs, pulling his hood up until it almost covered his eyes, masking his face with darkness as I headed for the staircase, closer to the bar. 

"So," I overheard Uma begin, getting over her fit of laughter as the boys took another sip of their ale. The only one old enough to drink was Uma, but I suspected there were ways far out in the galaxy to get around such feeble things like  _ laws _ . "Perhaps we should pack some liquid courage for you the next time you visit Vanaheim. You and that hobgoblin girl were getting on quite well, earlier. Perhaps you'll have the same luck with  _ Ragna _ ," she cackled as the tips of Alrik's ears flushed in the low light. I brushed up against a mounted bear head and leaned away, disgusted as I glared in its direction, before turning my attention back to the table they were sitting at.

"Shut up," He replied to Uma's jest, visibly flustered as she only laughed in response. They continued to converse over the general hum of everyone else in the room talking, but I couldn't bring myself to focus on whatever girl drama Alrik was facing now. First, Reina's psychotic mess of an attempted relationship with him, then Freya and her perfectness . . .

Acknowledging Freya's existence in my mind made my heart go as sour as a green apple. A green apple with a nasty worm in it. A worm on fire. A green apple, rotted, with a worm set ablaze inside it, which I would have liked very much to throw at that  _ infuriatingly  _ perfect maiden's head. As I thought of what sound her hollow skull would make as the apple hit it, I then spotted a figure at the bar, also hooded, a wisp of blond hair emerging from behind the hood as he took a sip of his drink. However, as he raised his drink, I caught sight of something on his finger━ a ring. A golden snake wrapped around his middle finger, eyes glinting emerald green under the torch lights as though it was winking at me. Uma yawned, and my gaze snapped back towards the table again, seeing her stretch her arms out wide above Alrik and Ivar's heads. 

"I think I'll go turn in for the night," She smiled at the other two, standing, wiping her hands off on her pants before she spotted Ingimarr and froze where she stood.

"Make sure to think up a new story for us," Ivar chuckled as he took another sip of ale. Uma's gaze slid towards the staircase, and her brown eyes landed on me.

_ "Sit down," _ I mouthed, eyes cold as she did as I told her, eyes narrowed as she lazily sat back down, as Ingimarr got up, stepping forward. I made my way over, slowly, staying out of the sight of the two boys as Ingimarr began to speak. 

"Well, well,  _ well, _ brother. Fancy seeing  _ you  _ here," Ingimarr spoke in a snarky tone as Alrik choked on his ale, a look of dread on Uma's face as Ivar simply stared in shock. 

"I-Ingimarr!" Alrik coughed, slamming his drink down in surprise. "What are you doing here?" 

"They stowed away." Uma deduced as Ivar raised a brow, looking back at her.

"'They'?" He asked her before I stepped out of the shadows. 

"We were planning on journeying to Jotunheim with you." He explained to the group as Ivar gave me a distasteful look.

"And you brought . . .  _ Bjorn _ ." His voice lilted downwards, as much as he tried otherwise to hide his discomfort caused by my presence. I rolled my eyes, pushing past Ingimarr and slamming my hands down on the wooden table, causing the son of Fandral to flinch. 

"If any of you tell my mother of this night in an attempt to get me in trouble, I will  _ skin  _ you with my emerald-encrusted dagger," I growled as Alrik laughed, much to my irritation. 

" _ That _ butter knife?" Uma retorted before I pulled said dagger out of my sleeve and lodged it in the space between her fingers. She looked up at me, wordlessly for a moment, before she snarled.

"You must be  _ out of your mind _ ." She muttered.

"You have no idea,  _ warmonger _ ," I replied.

After that, everything seemed to be like a blur in my mind. Ingimarr, being the genius he was, took someone else's drink off of a serving tray. The next thing we knew, some big, blue warrior in full battle armor was charging drunkenly at us, and Ingimarr was, of course, hiding behind me. The bar erupted into chaos as I, in a rush to defend myself, picked up the table behind us and threw it as hard as I could at his head. 

" _ Scatter _ !" Ingimarr cried over the cacophony of bar patrons trying to escape the conflict, as though he was some sort of battle leader, and picked up a torch from the wall. Alrik grabbed me, pulling Uma, Ivar, and I behind him as he readied his sword, watching as everyone began to quickly flood out, the blue-skinned warrior slowly rising with a large purple welt on his forehead. And then, I smelled smoke.

Curtains had caught up in flame behind us as Ingimarr frantically tried to put them out. The bartender was livid. Everyone was screaming. I was closed in, the center of our small, huddled group, without my weapon, as in my rush, I had thrown it, embedded in the table, at the man now towering over us. My thoughts seemed to go in slow motion as I lost my breath, knees hitting the carpet on top of the cold, hard, cobblestone floor. I crumpled to the ground as the carpet began to catch fire. As my brothers screamed for me to stay awake, to get up, pleading with me to keep my composure, everything went black.


	5. ( v ; ingimarr )

"GO!" The blond man roared, sword in the air, fury in his eyes as he swung for the blue warrior, and as I dropped the torch and grabbed Bjorn from the floor, hauling him over my shoulder, I couldn't bring myself to say no to him. We didn't win this battle. We ran. Out of the now-burning bar, past the overturned wooden tables, past the screaming people, past the exit ramp, and into the control room, where I didn't realize I was crying until I discovered the blond man from the bar had followed us, hood down as he looked at me with a sneer.

"Stop your sniveling, child. You escaped with nary a scratch." He snarled, raking his fingers through his shoulder-length hair hurriedly, green eyes fixated on me as his face twisted into a scowl. "And you were the one to _start_ the fight in the first place." He was right. I had. I had grabbed the drink. I had gotten snotty with the large blue man and sloshed his drink all over him using my magic when Bjorn and the rest of them hadn't been looking. And then I hid, like a coward, behind my poor brother, who I had just now dumped into one of the passenger seats in this stupid ship. _I_ had goaded him into coming in the first place. _I_ had stuck us in the storage closet, and it was _my_ idea to go into the bar. _I_ had dropped the torch that started to burn the whole place down. It was entirely _my_ fault.

"Leave him alone!" Alrik snapped, his eyes narrowing at the stranger as he stepped in front of me protectively. I was shocked━ I had thought, of all people, Alrik would be the one most angry with me, for ruining his night of fun and bringing Bjorn with me, threatening to expose the reality of his dashing and daring adventures through the cosmos. I hiccupped, looking over at Bjorn, still unconscious in the chair, his face sooty as he was draped limply over it, his lanky legs sprawled out across the floor in a way he would've never allowed had he been awake. He had always had better manners than I did. He had deserved to be liked more than I did. I pushed down a whimper, perhaps even a wail, feeling the stranger's stare on me again.

"Ingrid's sons." He rolled his eyes. "She was always a _weakling_ , I shouldn't be surprised." Alrik seemed to tense even more at those words, his broad shoulders obscuring my view of our coincidental savior.

"Shut up, Edmund," Alrik replied, and a shock went through my body. Edmund, son of Amora? It would only make sense that Alrik knew him, of course, because of his relationship with Edmund's sister, but Edmund Amorason was rarely ever seen, except for by his family, who kept to themselves very much. Most supposed he was simply too busy━ he had to take care of his mother's two daughters, after all, since she had been shirking her duties since the beginning of time, as it seemed. Others guess that he was, perhaps, up to something. Trying to find his father, maybe. Two of three of her children had fathers that were unknown to them, himself and Reina. Venus' father was some sorcerer that most likely had no idea she existed, but at least she knew his name. Edmund and Reina, however, were simply lost. Bastard children of an enchantress who cast them to the side.  

"You best watch your tone, boy. You are _quite_ lucky that I had decided you were worth wasting my time to save." His gaze turned to me, now, and he made it to me in less than three strides, with a cold, hard glare clear in his eyes as he looked down at me.

"Get yourself together, boy," he snarled, shaking me by the shoulders. "You are to be a man, and a _man_ knows nothing of tears."

"Get off him!" Uma stepped into action before Alrik could, catching Edmund by the wrist and pushing him away with enough force to make me stumble━ Edmund, however, barely stepped back, though his hands were off of me now as I looked at him, mouth agape as my tears only continued to fall.

"He's allowed to cry." She spoke venomously, hands balled into fists as his jaw simply tightened in response. "He's _scared_."

"Stop coddling him." He snapped in reply, but before Uma could respond, Alrik's eyes narrowed.

"What were you doing here?"

"Getting a drink, what else?" Edmund replied with snark, his own eyes narrowing in return as he scrutinized my brother with a harsh glare.

"Out of all the bars, in all the cosmos, you just so happened to be in the right one, at the right time to 'save' us?" He continued as Edmund simply sneered in his face, stepping forward again, his stance vaguely threatening.

"Call it a coincidence. Do you know how to spell that one, you dirty _elf_?" Uma stopped both Alrik and I as we surged forward, my eyes burning with tears of embarrassment as he brought up our mother's lineage.

"Easy," I heard Uma instruct us, though I could see the muscles in her jaw and arms tensing, clenching and relaxing as she held her hands out in front of us, her arms taught like a bowstring as it was drawn.

"And what were _you_ doing, Lokison? As far as I know, only _one_ of you is of age." He spat with a threatening glare.

"We were going to look for the sword of Surtur." I blurted out. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

"That's not true. We were just━" Ivar's excuse was cut off midway as Edmund's eyes widened and he interrupted with, "The Elderstahl?" A look of wonder flashed in his eyes but was immediately masked with indifference before I could interpret his gaze. I was beginning to think I had perhaps said the wrong thing.

"Well, now, we're going _home_ ," Alrik stated firmly, glaring back at Edmund as Ivar closed the exit ramp, heading for the pilot's seat before Edmund stepped in front of him. Ivar looked briefly afraid before simply pushing past him and sitting in the pilot's seat as Uma grabbed Edmund's arm, pulling him back from the son of Fandral.

"I think it's time you get back to your own ship," she uttered, her voice low, her eyes clearly sending him a warning.

"What are you doing looking for the Elderstahl?" He asked, wrenching his arm from Uma's grasp. "Hey!" Ivar cried as Edmund grabbed his hands, forcefully pulling them away from the controls. "Answer me," he snarled, but before anyone could, sirens began to blare, muffled by the walls of the ship. There was a beat of silence in the room before Alrik murmured, "The Nova Corps."

Edmund was the first to act, shouting, " **MOVE**!" With such a commanding, venomous tone that Ivar couldn't help but to scramble out of the pilot's seat as Edmund took his place.

"Hey!" Uma shouted, lunging for the controls, but it was too late. As Edmund abruptly raised the ship, we all fell back against the wall, jolted by his jerky motions before we fell forward. My back stung as I grabbed the chair I was now pressed against, huffing as the ship moved again and I pulled myself over the back and fell into the seat, my chest now briefly sore as well, though I ignored it in favor of quickly buckling myself in.

The sirens were only getting louder, and I briefly thanked the gods that someone had already buckled my twin into his seat, both because I didn't want him to be hurt by Edmund's shoddy flying skills, and because his eyes were beginning to flicker open with every bump of turbulence, and after what happened in the pub, I wasn't exactly sure I wanted him anywhere near me when he was conscious enough to release his rage; which just so happened to be very soon after everyone had found a seat, and Edmund was causing us to hurtle into space at ungodly speeds, pinning us to our seats.

Bjorn let out the loudest scream known to man when he was awake enough to realize what was going on, but it was nothing compared to the sound of the Nova Corps coming to collect us. While we were under cruise control at reasonable, even slow speeds, on our way to the pub, under the control of Edmund's white-knuckled grip, I was sure that, at this point, we must have been traveling faster than light itself. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but as he swerved around asteroids with stiff, yet accurate, precision, I was unable to do anything but yelp, shielding myself whenever we came all too close to one of the rocks.

Under the lights of the ship, Edmund's golden ring flashed in my eyes, and I soon realized the shape the metal took. It was a snake, coiled around his finger like a tiny, metal companion.

"You're going the wrong way!" Uma hollered as the ship began to creak and whine, unable to keep up with the speed it was going at. Edmund ignored her, licking over his lips as he stared out into the void of space in concentration. An image of my mother was suddenly projected in front of him, accompanied by a sharp ringing noise, and just as I was beginning to think my life was flashing before my eyes for real, Edmund reached up for barely a second, swiping his hand through her image as it disappeared, the emeralds in his ring reflecting green light into my eyes for the shortest moment. I blinked.

"Did you just _hang up_ on my _mother_?" Alrik shouted as Bjorn began to scream again.

"We're not going home, children. Not yet." He called back as we approached a large, blue planet, coated with ice. Soon, my stomach was lodged in my throat with my heart and lungs, and I screamed with Bjorn as I realized what Edmund was trying to do, right in time for us to enter the atmosphere.

Uma lunged for the controls as soon as he let them up, but it was too late for her to fully pull us back up, too late to pilot for the seat beside him. Even as she tried to level us out again, Edmund had a self-satisfied smirk on his face as we only came closer to the surface of the planet. He gave us a wink.

And then we made contact with the ground.


	6. ( vi ; ingrid )

It had been hours since I'd last seen Ingimarr, and Bjorn had perfected the art of avoiding the rest of his family after years, and despite knowing they never were up to too much trouble, I was worried. Even moreso when Uma had not answered my call to her ship. Of course, I knew Alrik and his friends were bragging about their supposed many trips to Jotunheim when in reality, they had never gone. I had confronted him the first time I had heard of his boasts, and he assured me that they were only going to Midgard; to Chuck E. Cheese, specifically. It was simply to gain popularity, as he claimed. Loki, who had gone to Heimdall, only confirmed that. They had been doing nothing wrong, though going to a Midgardian children's restaurant was slightly questionable, but tonight, I was beginning to worry. Perhaps they had taken Bjorn and Ingimarr with them, without my knowledge. I wouldn't have been angry if they did, though I was certainly going to chide them once they arrived home for worrying me so.

"My love," Loki sighed, coming up from behind me and slowly wrapping his lean arms around my curled torso in an attempt to give me comfort. "I am sure they are fine. Perhaps Bjorn has hidden somewhere in the library again."

"And what of Ingimarr?" I murmured in response, my eyes not lifting from the floor as I continued to wrap myself up in my own arms before he grabbed one of my hands and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"You know our children, flower," he hummed, "and you know they are just like their father." He chuckled briefly as my eyes finally raised from the golden floor of the palace halls, turning in his arms to face him. Our fingers now laced together, hands now dropped to our sides, I looked at him tiredly, though as his forest green eyes met my own sea foam irises, I could not help but smile, albeit briefly. "Perhaps they are out causing mischief of all sorts." He reached his free hand up to my face, gently brushing it over my braided crown and then over my cheek, grazing over my ear as he moved. He stroked my cheek with his thumb and I felt myself leaning into his touch despite myself, pressing a gentle kiss to his palm with my pale pink lips as his own upturned into the slightest smile.

"Perhaps," I replied, subduing a sigh as I leaned forward, putting my head in the crook of his shoulder as I glanced out to the rest of the hall, or what I could see of it. Thor sat on the golden throne, accompanied by Jane, as she read one of the Asgardian textbooks on astrophysics, nestled in her own throne. She had told me previously that it was uncomfortable, but as she was the only Queen to receive a throne in all the history of Asgard, rather than simply stand by her husband's side all day, she elected to use it rather than to let it become dusty. I smiled slightly, noticing her comfort now as she grew used to the golden seat. By her feet sat her daughters, Natalie and Rachel, reading storybooks, their legs curled up underneath them as they became absorbed in the old, yellow pages. With them, sat my own daughter, Alice, also reading, and Annalise, who was holding a cooing baby Felix, our youngest.

I could hear Edvald running, being chased by Hecate, I assumed, as I could see Elina from where I stood, making green, holographic butterflies for Felix to grab at, as they disintegrated at his touch. Her red hair shone in the light as she giggled, amused by his reactions just as he was amused by her tricks. Cicero was practicing her swordsmanship across the hall, carefully lunging and slicing at the air, slowly, trying to get a feel for it. I was so proud of her. No one could have ever told her what to do, and the existence of the Valkryior only made her more insistent on becoming a warrior herself. It was the most beautiful, wondrous thing I had ever seen. My own child, not allowing anyone to tell her what she could or couldn't be. I could hear Olga and Simon, Thor and Jane's eldest son, scuffling around outside as they sparred. Simon was the strongest, physically, of his siblings, as was Olga of her own. Of course, Simon being half-human had an impact on their little training sessions, but Olga never hurt him intentionally, never pushed him past his limits. My eldest daughter was quiet, and most who knew not of the mind she possessed would describe her as a savage daughter of the god of lies, but she was a mother at heart, a second mother to all children of Asgard, an ally to anyone who needed one.

My mind was swimming with worry still, even as I lay nestled in my husband's embrace, against a golden pillar, and I could not take my mind away from the subject of my three missing children from this beautiful picture. I had known Alrik would be gone overnight, using what little Midgardian money he had borrowed from his aunt Danielle to rent a hotel room, but I had made an agreement with him; he was always supposed to pick up when I called, no matter where he was in all the cosmos, no matter what he was doing. And at a time like this, when I couldn't see Ingimarr created tiny floating animals for his baby brother to grab at, when I couldn't see his beaming smile or Bjorn's sullen glare at any empty wall, I was restless.

"You're not listening, are you?" My husband sighed above me as I looked up at him from my place at his shoulder, simply blinking until I had realized what he'd said.

"I'm sorry," I sighed, "I am still . . ."

"Worried." He completed my sentence, brushing a few strands of my orange hair out of my face as he looked down at me. We had been through so much, you would think I'd be able to handle not seeing two of my children for a short while, but there was some unspeakable fear, most likely brought by centuries of loss, that convinced me to stand on the edge and look uncertainly out into the unknown, rather than turn away. Where were they?

"I know, my love," He pursed his lips briefly before licking over them with uncertainty, cupping both of my cheeks now as he looked into my eyes with feigned confidence. Despite him being the god of lies, I was almost always able to tell when he was fibbing, or when he was about to. He was just as worried as I was, I could feel it. Maybe it was because we'd been together for so long. Maybe it was because he told me half of his tricks when we were children to save me from getting into trouble. Maybe it was simply because we were connected, in heart and soul, but I knew for certain that he was not simply brushing this off like he was saying that he was. "But, perhaps consider that they maybe━" But, he did not finish his sentence, for there were people quickly approaching the throne, the armor of the einherjar clanking as they escorted the three officers━ Nova Corps, as I could see by the emblems on their uniforms━ to Thor. All eyes were on the blonde woman at the front of the pack as she glanced around nervously. Even Alice and Jane looked up from their books, briefly glancing at the officers as Thor straightened up.

"Officers," he greeted, nodding respectfully as the woman at the front played with a small item in a cloth bag. Before she replied, I turned my gaze back to Loki worriedly.

"I'm sure it's only a coincidence," he whispered, knowing immediately what I was thinking of. Ingimarr was prone to pulling pranks when he was a child, and sometimes they got him into quite a bit of trouble, but I was hoping, praying, that nothing had happened. I swallowed dryly, trying to contain my anxiety as I nodded just barely, placing my hand atop his heart, feeling the faint beating below his armor and leather.

"But what if . . . _What if_ . . ." I struggled to find the words to match my thoughts, but he seemed to understand anyway.

"Nothing has happened to our children, Ingrid, I assure you, or we would have known. We would have felt it, at the very least." He gently kissed my temple. This was a touch I would have shied from before we had been together, but now I was so . . . used to it.

"We have something that was recovered from a bar not too far from this planet, maybe a couple of hours away━ The Jackal's Tankard. Know of it?" She inquired, her eyes never wavering as she looked into Thor's, catching the attention of many in the room with her bold tone. "It caught on fire a few hours ago, and one of our suspects had this," she pulled the item out of the cloth bag and held it up into the air, and when I saw what it was, emeralds glimmering in the light, my heart sank. I looked back at Loki, between him and the emerald-encrusted dagger that Bjorn had gotten for his birthday this year, my eyes immediately beginning to well up with tears of shock as I tried to comprehend what she had said. They could've gotten hurt, maybe even died from that fire━ the fire that Bjorn may have started. There was only one way that he could've gone there, and it was on Uma's ship, that I knew. Assumably, Ingimarr was with him. Perhaps he was the one who started it. Or Alrik. Or Ivar. I severely doubted Uma would ever do such a thing, but now knowing that they had fluently lied to me about their whereabouts every time they went on one of their 'adventures,' I had no idea what they may or may not have done, on accident or on purpose. Loki sucked in a breath and the Nova Corps officer turned to us, still holding up the dagger.

"Recognize it? We traced the origins of the metal and the craftsmanship, and it led us here."

"That is our son's," I replied, throat dry as I escaped Loki's arms, stepping towards the woman as she handed it over. I turned it over in my hand, squeezing my eyes shut as I clutched the handle before opening them up again and looking back at my husband.

"We need to find our children and bring them _home_." His eyes wide, he simply nodded in response.

"We will."


End file.
